1956. A WRITERS CONGRESS WITH A DIFFERENCE

This article is a discussion of a lesser-known episode in the history of Czechoslovak emigres. In 1956, the year of the historically important Second Congress of the Czechoslovak Writers' Union, some of whose participants spoke out against the repressive aspects of Communist policy on the arts for the first time, a meeting of Czechoslovak emigre writers was held in Paris. It was organized by the Arts Council of Czechs Abroad, which was founded and run by the poet, literary critic, and publisher Robert Vlach (1917-1966). Called the 'Arts Council Congress', it was attended, for example, by Jan Cep (1902-1974), Frantisek Listopad (born Jiri Synek, 1921), Jaroslav Strnad (1918-2000), and Jan M. Kolar (1923-1978). The principal topics of the congress speeches and discussions were the starting point, possibilities, and position of the artist in exile (given by Pavel Zelivan, b. 1925, and Listopad), reflections on the most recent social, cultural, and political developments in Czechoslovakia (Jaroslav Jira, 1929-2005), and the possibilities and limits of communication with readers at home after the hypothetical return of emigres to their native country (a speech given by Cep). The congress sessions, the author argues, can reasonably be considered the height of work in the arts amongst the Czech emigres in the first half of the 1950s.